Detail from a Confederate Veterans Convention by Rufus W. Holsinger (Holsinger Studio Collection, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.)
In researching ancestors who served in the Confederacy, you may find the records of the United Confederate Veterans Association (UCV) of help.
Interesting enough, a gathering of Union veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic inspired their former enemies to form the UCV in 1889. Confederate veterans started the UCV, active from 1889 to the mid-1940s, as a benevolent, historical, social and literary association.
Before then, Confederate veterans belonged to local veterans’ organizations such as the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Association of the Army of Tennessee. More than 500 of the 1,885 UCV local camps previously been independent groups or belonged to other veterans’ groups. About 160,000 rebel veterans, 1 out of 4 of the Southern soldiers who survived the Civil War, eventually joined the UCV.
Among the UCV’s goals were “to make and preserve a record of the services of every member, and as far as possible of those of our comrades who have preceded us in eternity.” That didn’t happen, or if it did, not all the records survived.
Official UCV records include:
- Orders issued by the Adjutant General
- Correspondence
- Membership records
- Printed items
- Administrative and financial records
Probably of most interest to family historians are the membership records and printed items. Membership records include rosters, lists of camp officers and card files of members. Printed and graphic materials consist of programs, ephemera, photographs and newspaper clippings reporting convention events.
The local UCV groups, called camps, regularly held reunions and state reunions elected delegates to the national reunion. National UCV reunions drew thousands of Confederate veterans from across the country. Over its lifetime, the UCV held national reunions once a year in nearly 30 cities.
Some UCV records and guides to records are available online:
- The University of Pennsylvania’s Online Books Page carries links to the Minutes of the Annual Meetings and Reunions of the United Confederate Veterans from 1889 to 1926. The page also contains a link to reunion programs for some years of the UCV meetings and reunions.
- The Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections webpage contains an inventory of the UCV records in its collections, but you can’t look at those records online. The Library of Virginia also has an online guide to its UCV collection for 1890-1903.
- Some Southern states have online encyclopedias with general information about UCV camps and their reunions in their states. Two such are the New Georgia Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture that help lead you to veterans’ records.
State archives in the 11 states that formerly made up the Confederacy often have local UCV camp or other veterans’ records. Most of these records were never published, but some were compiled in Works Progress Administration materials from the Great Depression.
For example, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History holds a WPA typescript titled Source Material for Mississippi History, Preliminary Manuscript, Jasper County, which includes a “List of Confederate Veterans of Jasper County” some of whom had died decades before. Check the archives for the state where your veteran ancestor lived after the Civil War for possible records.
Have you had any success researching UCV or other veterans’ records? What other veterans’ records have you found useful?
Poore Boys In Gray 
Great article and tip! I’ll have to research what types of Confederate veterans societies were in Missouri.
Heather, check the LSU link above. Its holdings include other states. Also check here http://archive.org/details/officialproceedi00unit for the Missouri UCV proceedings for 1897 and here http://www.pricecamp.org/ucvcamps.htm for a list of UCV camps in Missouri. Good luck with your research!
Thank you for these resources, Frank! I realize that despite good intentions, not all records can survive. But it’s good to collect all the databases possible. Right now I’m re-watching Ken Burns’ documentary on The Civil War. Many, many heroes.
That’s an amusing photo. The odds are that what you have there are three former privates dressed up in officer coats (the double row of buttons). After the war, the veterans had a way of “promoting” themselves, for public consumption, frequently to captain (modestly) or colonel (immodestly). I suppose some of the one who lived long enough to where people had forgotten most of the history, were even bold enough to claim to have been generals.
I’m still puzzling over a collection of memoirs of Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade, done on the 50th anniversary in 1913, by a Mississippi newspaperman who claimed to be the last sergeant-major of the brigade’s 21st Mississippi Regiment, though there is no trace of him in what is considered to be the definitive muster listing of the brigade. Several of his quotes, supposedly from Barksdale himself, for instance, have been repeatedly used by novelists and historians alike.